


Hope He Keeps Dancing

by TheAuthorAgain



Series: Short Stucky Fics [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Dogs, Growing Old, M/M, Marriage, Old Married Couple, Passage of time, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Prepare to sob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28071342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAuthorAgain/pseuds/TheAuthorAgain
Summary: "We've had a good run-it hasn't been easy, but it's been good. Everything has to end eventually."
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Short Stucky Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2093415
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Hope He Keeps Dancing

"Steve?"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever wish we did things differently?"

Steve looked up from his newspaper, glanced at his husband's lined face. "No. No, I don't." He moved his chair closer to the hospital bed and smiled.

"Me neither," Bucky said, "I guess I just wondered if you did."

Three weeks. That's how long the doctors said he had. Bucky was strong, there was no doubt about that, but a super soldier serum can only do so much. Especially when said serum was administered hastily by a Nazi organization.

They both knew he was going to die. It was inevitable, more inevitable than that fatal snap that stole James away for five long years. More inevitable than the snap that took Tony away for good. The snap that Natasha died for. The snap that saved the universe.

But that was history. The world had collectively decided to move on, embrace the new present that their Avengers had given them. And Steve moved on with them. Gave Sam the shield. Gave Bucky his love. Gave up the heroics and gave in to the domestic life that called him.

The domestic life that was going to die.

Fifty years. They had grown even older together, gone to game nights and baby showers and weddings and funerals for every single one of their friends. They were the first ones born, the last ones left. It was ironic in this way.

Peter Parker was the first to go, that poor boy. 2025, he was only nineteen. Seven gunshot wounds during a patrol gone wrong. The Starks didn't stop crying through the whole funeral, and Tony's legacy was attacked when New York found out their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was a child.

It was Rhodey after that, 2032. He had helped to raise his best friend's daughter for as long as he could, but died of complications associated with a cardiac arrest before Morgan could go to college. Steve had a hard time with this one, especially since Rhodey had been the one to officiate at him and Bucky's wedding.

And then, just a year later, tragedy struck. Both Sam Wilson and the Stark family, gone within two months of each other. Sam died first, freezing to death while waiting for backup to come help their grounded Captain. They arrived to find a corpse. And too soon after his military funeral, while the world was still devastated by loss, Happy Hogan was hit by a high driver, both of the Stark girls in the car. Pepper and Morgan died immediately, Happy held on for another six months.

Steve and Bucky reeled after that. They had been planning to adopt a child at this point, but decided against it. Morgan was sixteen years old. They had wanted to adopt a teenager. That was a bit unappetizing after they saw a neat row of headstones engraved with the name "Stark".

Two years passed, they got a dog. And then another. And another. They were happy, life carried on as best it could. In 2037, they attended Scott Lang's funeral. He was 57, died in an explosion. Everyone gave his family their love.

23 years after Natasha Romanoff died, Wanda Maximoff followed in her footsteps. A group of CHIMERA operatives abducted her, she was unable to be located for two years. Steve was hell-bent on finding the girl, even though he had given up heroics long before. CHIMERA was founded on the broken remains of HYDRA, after all, and he couldn't help but feel responsible for leaving enough of their operatives left that they could take Wanda.

SHIELD finally found her body in 2046. Tortured past the point of recognizing the forty-three year old Witch. Her daughter was the only one who was allowed to see the corpse, Sylvia decided to have her mother cremated as soon as possible. Sokovia became Wanda's final resting place, and the Barnes-Rogers' decided to visit it once a year as a tribute to the Maximoffs.

Bruce was next. That one was hard. Only a year after Wanda, bless her heart, though his death was far less violent. At 78, Professor Hulk was suffering from Alzheimer's and didn't recognize anyone anymore. He suffered a severe stroke, never recovered. Bucky, having been very close to the man before his health declined, was devastated by the loss and became severely depressed. Steve moved out for a month when their marriage was tested by this. A year of therapy and several reminders of how much they loved each other helped things get better.

No one ever knew what happened to Thor. Steve honestly hadn't thought about him in about 10 years when a spaceship touched down in Northern Ireland. Clint, Steve, and Bucky were informed that the god had passed away. They never got any more information from the cranky man who called himself Starlord. It was a sad moment, nonetheless.

Even sadder was when Clint passed away in 2053, the last of the original Avengers other than Steve. Steve, who sobbed, right alongside the entire Barton clan. Clint was 82, they saw it coming a mile away, but it was still devastating. The funeral was televised, and millions of people from all over the world paid tribute to the man who had kept them safe as long as he was able.

Steve and Bucky never did end up having kids of their own, but they got very close to some of Bucky's siblings' descendents. Life moved on, the world kept turning. Bucky finished his memoir in 2055. Steve opened his exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in 2057. They attended charity balls and backyard bashes, no longer in the spotlight but admired nonetheless. They were happy.

2060\. Nick Fury finally died, the bastard. Lived to 104, which almost felt like an insult to everyone who died before him. But no one was angry that the Director had stuck around for so long, they were just sad to see him finally go. He had kept his wits about him until the moment he died peacefully in his sleep.

Bucky started having pains in his back ten years after that. He was around 75, biologically speaking, although it was very hard to gauge his actual age with all the cryofreeze and such. It worried Steve, seeing his life partner in pain all the time, but Bucky assured him it was nothing. Steve believed him.

At 90 years old, T'challa passed away. His four children threw a large funeral, just as they had for Shuri sixteen years before, and invited the Barnes-Rogers' out of politeness. The two men decided to go, pay their respects to the King who had eradicated the Winter Soldier all those years ago.

Bucky collapsed before they could even make it out of the door, though, and Steve insisted that they go to the hospital. In 2072, there were few things that medicine was incapable of achieving. But curing Steve's husband was one of those things.

His cells had been degenerating for decades, Bucky only started feeling it physically a few years before they finally went to the doctor. Because the technology that had made the man a super soldier was so old, and they had no information on how it was done, there was nothing they could do. A year, they said. They could give the man one more year of life.

Steve was in denial for a long time. Bucky accepted his fate immediately, simply chose to live the remainder of his life as best he could. Steve forced him to go to countless specialists, spent hours and hours poring over medical textbooks when those specialists said there was nothing they could do. Bucky went to the hospital six more times over a span of six months, and that final visit was the one where they said they only had three more weeks to be together. That final visit was the one where Steve broke down.

He didn't want to lose his best friend. Not again, not like this. He didn't want to lose his lover, the man who had stuck by his side even when he couldn't remember his own name. Steve didn't want Bucky to die. But Bucky had three more weeks of life, and those weeks were not going to be easy. And Steve finally understood just how real this all was.

"Steve?"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever wish we did things differently?"

Steve looked up from his newspaper, glanced at his husband's lined face. "No. No, I don't." He moved his chair closer to the hospital bed and smiled.

"Me neither," Bucky said, "I guess I just wondered if you did."

Steve stared at the man, the tubes sticking out of him from what seemed like everywhere. The bags under his bloodshot eyes. Eyes that still sparkled with youth, even if they were surrounded by sagging and grayish skin. Steve looked at that handsome face, those beautiful eyes, and felt tears well up in his own. "There's no point to regret, honey. We've had a good run-it hasn't been easy, but it's been good. Everything has to end eventually."

"You know I love you, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

Bucky took Steve's hand and looked at him fiercely-or as fiercely as he could in this feeble state. "Listen, Stevie. I love you. I know this ain't gonna be easy, but I'm gonna keep loving you even after I'm gone. And when you join me in heaven, you better be the cranky old man I love and not some shell of him, you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"Good." Bucky leaned his head back and loosened his grip on Steve's hand. "It'll be okay, you know. You've lost me before, you can lose me again. Death can't keep us apart."

"Til the end of the line, right?" Steve smiled softly as his husband chuckled at the old, old phrase.

"Til the end of the line." There was a pause before Bucky murmured, "You know, it's kind of funny. The first Avenger is gonna be the last one left. Hope he keeps dancing til the end..."

Bucky sighed, eyes drooping. Steve kept looking at that handsome face as it fell into sleep. "I love you," he whispered, a tear dropping onto the hospital sheet, "So goddamn much. I don't want you to leave, but I'll see you again. It won't be long, I just know it."

The funeral was a month later. Steve kept it together until the end, when he finally broke down. When it finally hit him. When he finally realized just how alone he was.

James Barnes. 1917-2073. The headstone was huge, practically a monument. Bucky never told Steve what he wanted for his funeral or burial, that was a topic he always shied away from, so Steve just let the public have their monument. He knew Buck wouldn't really care. His legacy was more than a rock covering a casket.

It was easier than Steve expected, letting his husband go. Not to say that it was easy. The kind of commitment they had, the bond that stood strong after 150 years, it was agony to lose. Steve screamed and begged and sobbed for hours, took months to get past the initial shock, but he ended up recovering. Five years, that's how long he lasted. Five years. He thought of his Bucky every day, and it never stopped hurting to look at pictures of that dashing man, but he kept on living for five more years after Bucky died.

It was a different world than he was born in, the world that Steve left. Everyone knew it was time. He had been alive for 160 years, for God's sake, it was long past his time to go. He went softly. He went peacefully. And, just for James, he kept dancing til the end. Even when his legs stopped working and dancing was just smiling slightly as he watched people he barely recognized twirl about to songs ten times their age just for him. He kept dancing, and that was enough.

Steve Rogers. 1918-2078. James Barnes. 1917-2073. Together til the end of the line.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! It's a short little thing, but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless.


End file.
